When it comes to preparing for hunting season, even if all else fails, don't let one thing slip away from you,

and that is having your rifle properly set up for hunting season.

I'm Joseph von Benedict, and this is the backcountry hunting podcast,

and today we're gonna talk about setting up a hunting rifle

to really help you maximize your chances for success.

There are a lot of small things that a lot of people tend to overlook.

And so I want to kind of go over what I do to make sure that I've got my rifle not tricked out. I don't like a lot of

gadgets and whatnot on my hunting rifle, but properly equipped for the bulk of the shooting situations I might find myself in and to access

the best accuracy potential and

equipment that that rifle, optic and equipment setup can offer.

Now, this discussion, I'm sure we'll talk about cartridges and bullets a little bit because

inevitably we do right but this discussion is really not about cartridges and

bullets appropriate for any type of game, whether it's

rodeir in Europe or white tails in most of America, right? Or elk and black bears in the west or maybe even brown bears on Kodiak Island or Cape Buffalo and Africa.

We're not going to go into that.

What we're talking about today is how to set up your rifle and that my friends kind of

applies to all those hunting situations now in front of me I've got a rifle

that I'm just got out to kind of showcase what I do to prepare a rifle for backcountry hunting but indeed hunting just about anywhere. This

particular one, those of you who are a long-time listeners may recognize it's the

rifle that I took when I went with my good hunting partner Joe Kennedy

about a year and a half ago on a drop camp DIY Moose Hunt in Alaska. We were in for, geez, I think it was 12 or 14 days and shot a really good bull.

Joe Kennedy took it. I've shot a few moose and I wanted him to have first crack and I passed on a shot that I shouldn't have passed on it. It was our first legal evening hunting there in Alaska and it was a beautiful bull. Not huge, I've shot bigger, but a great bull. I'd have gladly shot it, but we had a little bit of miscommunication. I thought Joe was going to try and shoot it. We were separate by about 200 yards and by the time I realized he had decided to pass on the bull in hopes of something bigger. It was too late. I tried to get in position to take a shot, but I just didn't get it done.

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